Defensive Scout

[o_ihmhi]

Because it gets a lot of flak.

Whether or not you guys like it (Eww, O HW Guy), any and every class can be played effectively as both offense and defense.

D Scout, however, seems like one of the most "ludicrous", "worst", or "shitty" ideas. Well, that's what they say. I tend to disagree.

From what I've read the going argument against D Scout is that all they can do is conc the enemy, toss caltrops everywhere, and crowbar them to death.

So you end up with a dead Scout and a weakened, conced, caltropped enemy... and that's poor defense? This also fails to take in mind that the Scout can get out of respawn faster and therefore fight the same enemy again and again until it goes down. If it were any other class, you could make a legitimate argument about being a man down, but the Scout moves so fast that getting out of respawn and to the defensive fight is almost a non-issue.

People also fail to remember that the Scout is best suited for pursuing O Scouts with the flag. After all, a Scout can't outrun a Scout save for skill alone.

And if that all didn't take the cake, Scouts can remove Spy's disguises. "But," you say, "we can do teh spy checks lawl". Yes, this is true. And the spy can still run by SGs unmolested. Scouts actually remove the disguise, so a Scout working in conjunction with well placed SGs equals mucho destruction.

Last but not least, the D Scout has one more dreaded weapon in his sleeve: the counter-conc. This is one of the most difficult moves I have ever had to use due to the precise timing it requires. The easy version "counters" offense; in the case of 2fort, conc enemies off of the bridge into the water and have a fellow team member intercept them at the ws. The hard version, however, actually counters an enemy conc jump. This would be thrownig a conc ABOVE a water-concing Scout/Med, for example, to counteract their momentum. Also difficult is using it to bounce back an incoming flyboy towards your base. It's a nasty trick.

So please, talk of your experiences, detractions, and praises of D Scout herein.

[o_ghost]

D scouts on pubs are marginally more effective than nothing at all since there isn't a set number of people on each team and you can spare having someone running around being an annoyance. That, and usually 70% of people on a team will be playing D anyway.

D scouts in clan matches is just a plain waste of a player. Common formats for leagues are 8v8 and 9v9. That means you usually get either 4 or 5 defenders to defend the flag. Since there are usually multiple ways to the flag these defenders need to be spread out around the base in key locations to stop the attackers. You just don't have any players to spare to have one run around and harass the other team. Doing so will leave a hole in the defense and allow attackers to flood in. Also, most of the attackers will probably be medics which A.) recover from a conc faster and B.) Are usually already conced due to conc jumping. They only thing that might be of some benefit is being able to undisguise spies and possible disarm detpacks.

[o_ohcanep]

The only occasion where I've seen a defensive scout do something slightly useful is in dustbowl. He can remove spies' disguises quickly, but that's about it. A spy could do the same thing and on top of that do some actual damage to the attackers with his knife and ssg, except with considerably slower speed. Not only lacks scout the stopping power but he also gets mowed down with ease. Thus scout's best used for what he's good at: running after flags. I don't think this is going to change all that much in FF either but what do we know?

[o_wilco]

Scout D just reminds me of the brand new fresh players... Scout is at the top of the class list, so it's the first thing they play, then they just randomly go around trying to do something.

It also reminds me why so people people get kicked or banned from clan servers, and some times publics if they have admins on there.

The scout is an offensive class, the ideas you put forward im hopeing are a joke?

If not then In honesty I just don't think it would be at all effective. Caltropping your base will more then likely just annoy your own team, as will throwing concs off the balc to try and mess up an enemies conc.

They will just die over and over and over, without creating any kind of defensive stand. But hey, try going against 20FoXBoT scouts, they rock!

[o_foxtrick]

Purely defensive scout would for the large part of a maps duration be a waste of time, however in certain circumstances it could cripple a flag carrier taking your flag out hte base with calthrops.
PS the guy above said about annoying your own team aswell - definately true, it would probably do more harm than good in most clanned maps which all I would say have some sort of narrow corridor at some point of every flag route.

This is where backtracking is a valid tactic in reality(no I never backtracked, I was a good boy!), dropping players back or forward to slow losing caps and speed up getting caps works. Its just like a football match, where the manager can send his players forward or back or slow down the pace of the game and pass the ball abit. Just a shame there isnt a penalty for diving in TFC.

[o_player]

Playing defensive Scout, although pretty pointless, is very very amusing. You can get so much laughs when playing defensive Scout; that is, of course, on public servers only.

[o_ihmhi]

I think it would be mostly useless in clans, yes. It is terribly amusing on pubs. ;3

It really is effective, though it takes practice. I have to, just HAVE to, play D Scout when I hear "They got a Scout on D LOL".

I'm sure out there, somewhere (probably Korea), there is a D Scout player who is feared by many and mocked by all. xD

And no, it isn't a joke.

Take it for a spin if you don't think it's at the very least entertaining. Load up Scout and think of how you would defend, and give it a shot.

It's always best in a support position, though, backed up by a Solly or SG.

[o_ghost]

There's a difference between something being amusing and something that helps out your team. For instance, people find sniper wars fun. However, it really doesn't help out your team at all if the snipers on both sides just sit there shooting at eachother and not the other people attacking.

Also, the only reason your D scout works is cause you have that soldier/sg behind you. Without that backing up the D scout the scout whould just get steamrolled by grenades and shotties constantly on the way in and on the way out. I would say the morjority of the time the soldier/sg would be fine without the assistance of a D scout. However, what would really benefit the soldier/engy is another soldier playing ahead of them which stands to take off a bunch more health from an attack than a scout could ever do. That allows the soldier in the back to just hit the attack maybe once with a rocket instead of having to take em on at close to full health.

[o_id_]

scout d is ineffective on CTF maps. if you gave me a choice on what to run against, id pick the scout for sure. a soldier in the d scouts position is going to be much more effective just by stopping power alone, not to mention the ability to spam grenades at choke points. i guess you could argue that caltrops could be useful at these points, but from a defensive perspective, id much rather have those nails at that position than some caltrops.

[mervaka]

D scout with crowbar ftw!

[o_jimyd]

I for one like to D medic and D spy. One of the best 2 overlooked positions.

D medic can shaft the enemy offense pretty hard.

And D spy = bane of heavy offense.

[o_ghost]

At least medic and spy carry grenades and other weapons that actually deal damage. Scout on the other hand has a single shotty that does hardly any damage, a nailgun which hardly hits anything, caltrops which are easily avoided, concs that really don't affect the enemy all that much, and a crobar which would probably be the most damaging weapon the scout carries.

[o_jimyd]

Scout is anti-spy/scout/demo. Single shotgun can severly mess a demo up, especially after a pipejump.

Best would be d pyro or sniper though.

[o_parasite]

I always played def scout on well, disarming the water detpacks until it was blown, then switching to HW. Worked quite well, and was great when the enemy was like OMFGWTFBBQ?

[o_blufive]

Originally Posted by Ohcanep

The only occasion where I've seen a defensive scout do something slightly useful is in dustbowl. He can remove spies' disguises quickly, but that's about it. A spy could do the same thing and on top of that do some actual damage to the attackers with his knife and ssg, except with considerably slower speed. Not only lacks scout the stopping power but he also gets mowed down with ease.

I've said this repeatedly elsewhere, but for once it's exactly on topic. Anyhow, reasons why Scout *can be* better at this job than Spy:

-speed
You're attempting to unmask spies. To do that, you have to touch them. Being faster than they are is a big help. Around a cap point, with the usual chaos going on, speed is of the essence. The faster he's unmasked, the better. If you're a spy, and the enemy gets past you, you're in a tail chase and you're probably not going to catch him at all, let alone quickly.

-stopping power
Yeah, the scout has little stopping power. But what about the one or two (or more) sentry guns in the area? They have way more stopping power than a spy, and a scout can unmask the attackers much faster than.

What I'm saying is, this is team fortress. Stop thinking of the scout as an independent defender, start thinking of him as a force multiplier for the sentry guns - an integral part of a SG/Scout double/triple act.

All that said, I've not voted above. The role described here is highly specialist. It only works well in certain highly-specific situations (defending point objectives from attacks involving significant numbers of spies) and requires assistance from other team members (at least 1 well-positioned and maintained SG is necessary).

However, there are numerous other situations in fortress games where defensive scout sucks (like defending against any sort of attack-in-force).

So, "defensive scouts: can work well in some circumstances" about covers it.

[o_bubbles]

With a good defense that has a sense for strategic planning, it doesnt really matter how fast you get to your defense position.

[o_darknight]

Two shotgun shots = dead scout.

[o_player]

Four at most since no natural player has perfect shotty aim.

[o_ekim]

I'm not experienced in AvD but I have to think def scout would suck ass there, too. Unmasking spies isn't to justify losing a player who could actually damage things. Any AvD clanned players /ever/ used a def scout to good effect?

[o_df`]

Originally Posted by Darknight

Two shotgun shots = dead scout.

Yes, and one of the points made in the OP is that the scout moves so fast that even though he is likely to be killed quickly, chances are he will be able to meet the attacker again (if not several more times) before they advance very far into the base.